Hand of God (2 page)

The
wünderkind
is Prometheus Adenuga and he plays for AS Monaco and Nigeria. I just watched a
MOTD
montage of the lad’s goals and skills with Robbie Williams belting out ‘Let Me Entertain You’ in the background, which only goes to prove what I’ve always suspected: the BBC just doesn’t get football. Football isn’t about entertainment. You want some entertainment, go and see Liza Minnelli fall off a fucking stage, but football is something else. Look, if you’re trying your damnedest to win a game, you can’t really give a fuck if the crowd are being entertained while you do it; football is too serious for that. It’s only interesting if it matters. Just watch an England friendly and tell me I’m wrong. And now I come to think of it, this is why American sports are no good; because they’ve been sugared by the US television networks to make them more appealing to viewers. This is bullshit. Sport is only entertaining when it matters; and, honestly, it only matters when it’s all that fucking matters.

Not that there’s anything very honest about the way football is played in Nigeria. Prometheus is just eighteen years old, but given that country’s reputation for age-cheating he might be several years older. Last year, and the year before that, he was a member of the Nigerian side that won the FIFA U-17 World Cup. Nigeria has won the competition four times in a row, but only by fielding many players who are much older than seventeen. According to a large number of bloggers on some of Nigeria’s most popular websites, Prometheus is actually twenty-three years old. The age disparities of some African players in the Premier League are even greater. According to these same sources, Aaron Abimbole, who now plays for Newcastle United, is seven years older than the age of twenty-eight that appears on his passport; while Ken Okri, who played for us until he was sold to Sunderland at the end of July, might even have been in his forties. All of which certainly explains why some of these African players don’t have any longevity. Or stamina. And why they get sold so often. No one wants to be holding those particular parcels when the fucking music stops.

That’s just one reason why I won’t ever become the England manager; the FA doesn’t want anyone – even someone like me, who’s half black – who’s going to say that African football is run by a bunch of lying, cheating bastards.

But it isn’t the true age of Prometheus, who plays for AS Monaco, which is currently occupying the journalists grubbing around the floor for stories in Brazil – it’s the pet hyena he was keeping in his apartment back home in Monte Carlo. According to the
Daily Mail
it bit through the bathroom plumbing, flooding the whole building and causing tens of thousands of euros’ worth of damage. A pet hyena makes Mario Balotelli’s camouflaged Bentley Continental and Thierry Henry’s forty-foot-high fish tank look sensible by comparison.

Sometimes I think that there’s plenty of room for another Andrew Wainstein to start a game called Fantasy Football Madness in which participants assemble an imaginary team of real-life footballers and score points based on how expensive those players’ homes and cars are, and how often they get themselves into the tabloids, with extra points awarded for extravagant WAGs, crazy pets, lavish Cinderella-style weddings, stupid names for babies, wrongly spelt tattoos, daft hairstyles and off-menu shags.

I bought Fergie’s book when it came out, of course, and smiled when I read his low opinion of David Beckham. Fergie says he kicked the famous boot in Beckham’s direction when his number seven refused to remove a beanie hat he was wearing at the club’s Carrington training ground because he didn’t want to reveal his new hairstyle to the press until the day of the match. I must say I have a lot of sympathy with Fergie’s point of view. Players should always try to remember that everything depends on the fans that help to pay their wages; they need to bear in mind what life is like for the people on the terrace a bit more often than they do. I’ve already banned City players from arriving at our Hangman’s Wood training ground in helicopters, and I’m doing my best to do the same with cars that cost more than the price of an average house. At the time of writing, this is £242,000. That may not sound like much of a restriction until you consider the top-of-the-range Lamborghini Veneno costs a staggering £2.4 million. That’s almost chump change for players making fifteen million quid a year. I got the idea of a price ceiling for players’ cars the last time I looked in our car park and saw two Aston Martin One-77s and a Pagani Zonda Roadster, which cost more than a million quid each.

Don’t get me wrong, football is a business and players are in that business to make money and to enjoy their wealth. I’ve no problem with paying players three hundred grand a week. Most of them work damn hard for it and besides, the top money doesn’t last that long and it’s only a few who ever make it. I’m just sorry I didn’t get paid that kind of loot when I was a player myself. But because a football club is a business, it behoves the people in that business to be mindful of public relations. After all, look what’s happened to bankers, who today are almost universally derided as greedy pariahs. Perception is all and I’ve no wish to see supporters storming the fucking barricades in protest against the disparity in wealth that exists between them and professional footballers. To this end I’ve invited a speaker from the London Centre for Ethical Business Cultures to come and talk to our players about what he calls ‘the wisdom of inconspicuous consumption’. Which is just another way of saying don’t buy a Lamborghini Veneno. I do all this because protecting the lads in my team from unwanted publicity is an increasingly important way of ensuring you get the best out of them on the football pitch, which is all I really want. I love my players like they were my own family. Really, I do. This is certainly how I talk to them, although a lot of the time I just listen. That’s what most of them need: someone who will comprehend what they’re trying to say, which, I’ll admit, isn’t always easy. Of course, changing how players handle their wealth and fame won’t be easy either. I think that encouraging any young men to act more responsibly is probably as difficult as eradicating player superstitions. But something needs to change, and soon, otherwise the game is in danger of losing touch with ordinary folk, if it hasn’t done so already.

You’ve heard of total football; well, perhaps this is total management. A lot of the time you have to stop talking to players about football and talk to them about other things instead; and sometimes it all comes down to persuading average men how to behave like gifted ones. In this job I have learned to be a psychologist, a life counsellor, a comedian, a shoulder to cry on, a priest, a friend, a father and, sometimes, a detective.

I’d gone on holiday to Berlin with my girlfriend, Louise Considine. She’s a copper, a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police, but we won’t hold that against her. Especially as she’s extremely pretty. The picture on her warrant card makes her look like she’s advertising a new fragrance:
Met by Moschino, the Power to Arrest
. But hers is a very natural beauty and such is the power of Louise to charm that she always reminds me of one of those royal elves in Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, or Arwen. That does it for me, anyway. I’ve always loved Tolkien. And probably Louise, too.

We did a lot of walking and saw the sights. Most of the time we were there I managed to stay away from the television set and the World Cup. I much preferred to look at our hotel room’s wonderful view of the Brandenburg Gate, which is among the best in the city, or to read a book; but I did sit down to watch the Champions League draw on Al-Jazeera. That was work.

As usual, the draw took place at midday in UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. The club chairman, Phil Hobday, was in the bemused-looking audience and I caught a glimpse of him looking very bored. I certainly didn’t envy him that particular duty. While the moment of the draw drew near, I was Skyping Viktor in his enormous penthouse hotel suite at the Copacabana Palace in Rio. As we waited for our little ball to come out of one of the bowls and be unscrewed by the trophy guest – a laborious and frankly farcical process – Viktor and I discussed our latest signing: Prometheus.

‘He was going to sign for Barcelona but I persuaded him to come to us instead,’ said Viktor. ‘He’s a little headstrong, but that’s only to be expected of a prodigious talent like his.’

‘Let’s hope he’s not such a handful when he comes to London.’

‘Oh, I don’t doubt Prometheus’ll need a good player liaison officer to advise him of what’s what and to keep him out of trouble. The boy’s agent, Kojo Ironsi, has a number of suggestions on that front.’

‘I think it’s best that the club appoints someone, not his agent. We want someone who’s going to be responsible to the club, not to the player; otherwise we’ll never be able to control him. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Headstrong kids who think they know it all. Liaison officers who side with the players, who lie for them and cover up their shortcomings.’

‘You’re probably right, Scott. But it could be worse, you know... The boy’s English is actually quite good.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve been reading his tweets ahead of Nigeria’s match in Group F with Argentina.’

I wasn’t entirely in agreement with Viktor about this being a good thing; sometimes it’s actually better for the team if a player with a big ego can’t make himself easily understood. So far I’d resisted the temptation to bring up the fate of the mythological Prometheus. Punished by Zeus for the crime of stealing fire and giving it to men, he was chained to a rock where his liver was eaten daily by an eagle only to be regenerated at night because, of course, Prometheus was an immortal. What a fucking punishment.

‘Look, Viktor, since you’ve met him it might help if you could persuade the boy to stop tweeting about how talented he is. That will keep the British press off his back when he comes to England.’

‘What’s he said?’

‘Something about Lionel Messi. He said that when they meet on the football field it will be like Nadal versus Federer, but that he expects to come off best.’

‘That’s not so bad, is it?’

‘Vik. Messi has earned his chops. The man’s a phenomenon. Prometheus needs to learn a little humility if he’s going to survive life in England.’ I glanced at the TV. ‘Hang on. I think this is us now.’

London City were drawn to meet the Greek side Olympiacos in Piraeus, for the away leg of the play-off round, towards the end of August. I gave Viktor the news.

‘I don’t know, is that good?’ asked Viktor. ‘Us against the Greeks?’

‘Yes, I think so, although of course it will be very hot in Piraeus.’

‘Are they a good team?’

‘I don’t really know much about them,’ I said. ‘Except that Fulham just bought their leading striker for twelve million.’

‘So that’s to our advantage then.’

‘I suppose it is. But I imagine I’ll have to go to Greece sometime soon and check them out. Compile a dossier.’

Louise had kept quiet throughout my conversation with Viktor but when our Skype call was over, she said: ‘You’re on your own for that particular trip, I think, my darling. I’ve been to Athens. There was a general strike and the whole city was in turmoil. Riots on the streets, graffiti everywhere, the rubbish not collected, a vicious right-wing, Molotov cocktails in bookshops. I swore then I wasn’t ever going back.’

‘I think it used to be worse than it is now,’ I said. ‘From what I’ve read in the newspapers it seems to be a little better since the votes in the Greek parliament about the national debt.’

‘Hmm. I’m not convinced. Just remember, the Greeks have a word for it:
chaos
.’

After the draw was over, Louise and I went to lunch with Bastian Hoehling, an old friend who manages the Berlin side, Hertha BSC. Hertha isn’t yet as successful a club as Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but it’s only a matter of time and money, of which there is plenty in Berlin. The recently renovated stadium was the venue for the 1936 Olympic Games. Seating seventy-five thousand, it is one of the most impressive in Europe. With people moving to Berlin all the time – especially young people – the club itself, recently promoted to the Bundesliga, is well supported. The English Premier League is without peer, and Spain may have the best two clubs in the world, but for anyone who knows anything about football the future looks decidedly German.

We met Bastian and his wife, Jutta, in the ‘restaurant sphere’ at the top of the old TV tower, and when we we’d finished talking about the spectacular view of the city and surrounding Prussian countryside, the excellent weather we’d been enjoying, and the World Cup, the subject turned to the Champions League and City’s draw against Olympiacos.

‘You know, when the World Cup is over, Hertha has a preseason tour of Greece,’ said Bastian. ‘A match against Panathinaikos, Aris Thessaloniki and Olympiacos. The club owners thought it would be good for German–Greek relations. For a while back there, Germany was very unpopular in Greece. It was as if they blamed us for all their economic ills. Our tour is hopefully a way of reminding Greeks of the good things Germany has done for Greece. Hence the name of our peninsular competition: the Schliemann Cup. Heinrich Schliemann was the German who found the famous gold mask of Agamemnon, which you can see in the National Archaeological Museum, in Athens. One of our club sponsors is launching a new product in Greece and this competition will help to oil the wheels. A
fakelaki
, I think they’d call it. Or maybe a
miza
.’

‘I don’t think it can be
fakelaki
,’ said Louise, who spoke a little Greek. ‘That’s an envelope for a doctor to take care of a patient.’

‘
Miza
then,’ said Bastian. ‘Either way, it’s a means for Germany to help put some money into Greek football. Panathinaikos and Aris FC are both supporter-owned clubs, which is also something that Germans believe in strongly.’

‘You mean,’ said Louise, ‘that there are no Viktor Sokolnikovs and Roman Abramovich figures in German football?’